Tomorrow we leave for Melbourne. I should be able to post before I go, but if not, I won't be here until next Monday (my time). Hopefully, you guys can keep the place going with lots of posts!

Today I'll be packing and we've also got to do a little bit of shopping. Hopefully, it will all be done in record time.

Songbird - wow, you do have a busy week. It's cool that your choir will be broadcast on the radio. What are you singing? Well, with the dog attack, we were just walking past a house we walk past every day, and apparently the lady who lives there came out to get her car ready to go to work and thought she'd shut the front door but didn't, so the dogs got out, saw Harry, and raced across the road to attack him. Not nice. I've change the route I walk.

Sarah - glad yo enjoyed your date night. Yes, the weather's supposed to be quite warm in Melbourne too. The weather can be a bit hit and miss down there, but it looks like it's going to be reasonably consistent this time.

It's Monday and literally feels like hell froze over. At least there's more James May on Man Lab tonight, and I'll probably make some pork chops. And at least it'll be decently warm in another day or two.

And now it seems that there's something to the Audi R18 videos--it seems that Audi plan on releasing one a day until the 18th. Of course, Audi never did this with any other of their racing cars, and I can't remember them doing this with any of their road cars, either.

They seem to think that we all need the patience of Griselda to wait until the 18th for the public launch, though it's only two days away. BTW, the phrase "patience of Griselda" goes back to a folk tale, but here's a more contemporary look at a woman called Griselda:

I did get started on chapter 11 finally. I'll try and work on it later tonight after a nap, my TV stuff and dinner. The weather the next couple of days will be pretty good for working on this stuff and a few other things.

Some motorsport news from Audi: 2013 World Endurance Champion, three time American Le Mans Series Champion, and three time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Allan McNish has decided to retire from full-time racing, the announcement being made today. Aside from testing, the only Scottish World Drivers Champion title holder will not race for Audi next year, though he's expected to continue with the team in an advisory and ambassador role.

The Le Mans grid won't be the same without him, even if he's serving as a TV commentator--a likely future career for Allan--or if he's in the Audi paddock area, though not slated to drive.

As for me, I did sleep in last night after I caught Man Lab. However, I did get started on my fan fic stuff. I didn't make my pork chops, either, so that's a project for today/tonight.

And aside from rain, the weather is looking pretty good this weekend. At least it'll be warmer than usual for this time of year for once, after it being insanely cold most of this month.

Unveiling of the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro is now just a few hours away. That'll be on the heels of the announcement of the retirement of Allan McNish that was made yesterday, and we'll know today who'll be taking his slot in the championship winning line up.

Didn't make my pork chop dinner yesterday, but I did work on fan fic a bit, and I hope to get a lot further today. I'm hoping to try and make myself stay up long enough to make my dinner finally.

Oh, and today's the last day of really cold weather. Even when it cools off after this weekend, it'll still be warmer than it has been, and Christmas will probably be warmer than Thanksgiving was.

Finally made dinner last night and got some work done on my fan fiction. I plan on working more on that today.

Also, finally, Audi did launch the R18 last night, the newest big innovation that it has is what Audi term "laser lights", where a laser beam is reflected off of crystals to produce light. Other than that, nothing new really.

I have some plans for some stuff to do over the next few days because of it warming up. Just too bad that it'll be rainy on those days.

Not going to be a great night for me tonight, because at around 9:00-10:00 tonight, I have to start fasting for some blood tests tomorrow. At least I'll probably be asleep for much of that time.

So I'll eat during the day today, and hope for the best tomorrow. At least it'll be decently warm and such, even if it's raining. Won't last forever, though, but at least Christmas will probably be warmer than Thanksgiving was.

Hopefully if it does flood here or elsewhere there's a chance of it, hopefully it won't be too bad.

I was going to have blood test done today, but I felt like crap and we'd have to rush for me to get ready, get to Shelby, get signed in, my blood drawn and back home--someone had to start a fire for grandma and I just didn't feel up to going out this morning.

So we're going to try again Monday to get it done, hopefully someone can stay up or we can put it off until after Grandma's up or something like that.

Hopefully everyone will be vigilant with the weather today, because of chances of flooding and severe storms in the southern US, and flooding up north. One or both of these threats covers much of the eastern US, and where there's not a chance of it storming or flooding, it's snowing. Some great weekend, huh...

And I found a new website for those of you who are into fictional monsters and fantasy creatures. New Monster Wikia is the site. I've found that they have a lot of stuff on things like Guyver and some general stuff on vampires and werewolves, but, sadly, nothing on Twilight...

I hope that everyone makes it though this weekend OK so we can get on to Christmas.

I came out of the storms last night OK. We didn't lose power, our house didn't really flood, and though the wind kept me up last night, nothing else really happened here.

I did get most of the dishes done early this morning. Just waiting for groceries to be dropped off and hopefully by tomorrow the ground will be hard enough to round up more firewood--I was sinking into the ground where we have it stored.

At some point tonight, I'll start fasting again, because I have to try and get my blood test stuff done tomorrow. At least there's some FIA WEC thing to watch tonight while I'm fasting.

I do have plans to work on fan fic and other stuff like that at some point today, and then after the blood tests tomorrow, it's on to Christmas.